Friday, 4th hour, library

Sarah D, Sarah Z, Paul B, Jay S, Jack C.:

• on how we're using google forms right now to collect meaningful data about our students' learning
• on language/vocabulary and how when students don't have the words to identify the thinking they are doing and how that trips them up sometimes
• e.g., students can easily DO the thinking of literary analysis but once you ask them to put in the literary vocabulary, they think they don't know what they're doing
• if students read and write MORE in class, they'll get better at these things
• and this may mean teachers have to give up some sorts of control that we are really comfortable with
• every student reading the same book, writing the same paper, etc. --easier for teachers to feel 
• jellyfish model, tentacles that stretch back into all four years. All teachers agree to those tentacles, and then we operate freely around those depending on the needs of our students for that year
• portfolios portfolios portfolios in google docs! 
• radical literary education example
• one poem for the entire semester
• common spine to organize a course with different diversions off of it, student-driven
• how to help our colleagues to let go of control in places where it would best serve our students
• there's a common thing (text, concept, etc.) that everyone does and then give students chances to make choice with their work to connect back to that
• the thinking we're doing here is tearing down the lang arts boundaries (the ones we assume that are there that don't need to be?) 
• what are they in math?